Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Nocturnal Smile
Summary: Sena ruminates on his relationship with Agon, how it came to be, and where he's going to take it.  On limits and how far they can be pushed and how caution can be its own kind of danger.


Disclaimer: Even I'm happy I don't own it. That should tell you something already about this story.

A/N: So, the background for this story. I was going around the interwebs looking for some more AgonxSena since hadaka and F.A. Star Hawk (both superb authors, go check them out) have both kind of gotten me hooked, when I found a forum where hadaka was talking about the dynamics necessary for Agon and Sena to work. I read it, agreed, made no comments in the forum because I'm apparently a lurker, then one night later this happens. I'm not really sure what this is. I think a plot bunny and a desire for more AgonxSena got together and had wild crazy sex, then their retarded child marched around my head bleating until I paid attention to it.

Wow, do I ever suck at self-promoting or what?

I'd say read and enjoy, but I don't think it's that kind of story. Er, read and try not to regret? Let's go with that.

* * *

Sena loves football because of what it's brought him: new friends, reunions, respect, people to laugh with, people to compete against, a chance to rival others he'd have no chance of winning against anywhere else (unless it was a competition involving technology of some sort…) and not to mention an end to his gopher days. But he hates it, just a little, because it's also brought

_Hands slick with sweat pin him against the wall, and the apartment smells like its owner, like the one the hands are attached to- the iron tang of blood and bitter alcohol, so thick in the air he can practically get drunk without a single sip- and only one hand is needed to hold his arms in place above his head. The other reaches for his shirt, and in a ripping sound made obscenely loud by the absence of anything besides tortured (for two very different reasons) breathing, his shirt is gone._

_It is another line of defense taken down. Sena cringes._

_Lips move over his ear as the chill sets in, setting alight goosebumps on his now exposed skin. Sena very carefully thinks the word exposed and not vulnerable. He has always been a very careful boy, running from bullies to avoid their meaty fists, but now his pavement, his football field… it's all run out. The lips are forming vulgar words and Sena can't help but shiver when he feels the hot puff of air accompanying them. It is not in anticipation. "Can't wait for me to shove myself inside you, can you, fucking whore, _you know you love it."

_Sena doesn't. This is also something he is careful not to say, because he's always been such a very careful boy._

_It's not helping now._

_He's thrown onto the ground, and another body is lowered on top of him. Sena closes his eyes-_

Agon. It brought Agon into his life when they might have never crossed paths otherwise. Even if they had met, it's not like Agon would have stopped for him. Sena was under the radar when not in Deimon football gear, he was trash that couldn't be "romanced" like Agon's infamous list of girls, trash too weak to be menaced because it would have been too easy. That's something both Agon and Sena can agree on.

Agon sours everything he lays a hand on. Even football memories aren't immune, now his high school triumphs are tinged with the fact of how few of those people Sena practically died to defeat and actually make friends with still keep in touch. The people at the league, too, they're friendly, but

_The quarterback, a cheerful man with the peculiar mix of glasses and a handlebar mustache and a name Sena will never quite be able to say without an accent, is inviting him out for drinks. Sena opens his mouth to reply, but there is a hand on his shoulder. It is gripping very tightly, but Sena doesn't say anything under the pain._

_He knows it'll make it worse, later._

"_So sorry," Agon replies for him in perfect English. Of course. "We actually already had plans, there's this movie Sena's been dying to see and it's the only time that works for both of us. Maybe some other time." (Agon could always politely charm when it suited him, just like Hiruma. It burns the man to hear how similar he is to Sena's former quarterback, so he stops telling him. Agon stopped listening a long time ago, anyways.)_

_There never is some other time (and no movie), and eventually, the invites slowly turn to a trickle and stop coming. _

he's always busy with something, and there just isn't time. There's just never an opportunity. Not with Agon's jealousy. Not with Agon.

Even America, the land of the free, is turning out to have false advertising. By this point, it's just another thing that reeks of bitterness.

Sena has heard street fairytales where a man walks into a hairdresser, asking for a buzz cut because he claims his dreads are giving him a headache. The stylist, bemused, agrees and begins cutting. An entire colony of spiders flows out of his hair, having made a nest in those very same dreads. The spiders start biting in retaliation for the irreparable damage done to their home, and the former dread head dies from their poison. Sena sometimes pets Agon's hair when they're on the verge of sleep, and drifts off with a smile and a wish. He never tells Agon what he's thinking when asked.

Sena isn't sure Agon would die, anyways. He's already so poisonous (souring everything he touches) that he'd probably shrug it off.

The beginning was nicer, Sena tells himself. It might be a lie, he can barely remember how long it's been, but if he wants to believe it, well, it's his life. It was just- he had been lonely, in a new country with faces formed differently and words that came out slower, like molasses, more fluid at times than his own language. A familiar face was welcome, especially one that knew who he was talking about when he brought up some memory over lunch.

No one had told Sena those lunches were dates. He certainly hadn't known until Agon had bothered to mention it, if that's what you wanted to call it.

_Sena opened the door to his apartment and thought he had been robbed. It was the logical assumption, seeing how everything in his place was _**missing**_. Only the furniture that came with the apartment was here. Sena took two shaky steps inside, still in shock._

_There's a type of violation that comes with a robbery, a feeling of insecurity and rage that someone has pawed through your clothes, the books you read, your laptop files, what brand of teapot you own without your permission. The rage would come later. Sena ran a hand through his hair, still staring around, as if his gaze could replace everything that was missing._

"_Oh. You're back earlier than I expected."_

_Sena turned around. Agon stood in the doorway Sena had not remembered to close after he saw the state of his apartment._

"_I moved your shit to my place, you're living with me from now on. Heh, figured I'd be 'considerate' and move everything for you, less work for you and more time for me. You can make it up to me later." Agon was smirking, arms casually folded as if he'd done Sena a huge favor and simultaneously daring Sena to challenge him. He had said the word considerate sardonically, the way people say words they aren't familiar with but think sound funny. Like a joke others should laugh at._

_That wouldn't occur to Sena until much, much later. For now, Sena stares at him blankly. Where's my stuff? Why did you do this? You didn't ask me, did you? Did I agree and not remember? Should I call the police? How did you get in? When did you get a key to my place? Where do you live? Why? _

_There were too many questions all trying to bubble up and come out at once, none of them made it over the other. What happened instead was Agon taking his wrist and forcibly tugging him away from his life. _

Sena is awake at 2:19 in the morning, holding his pillow and muffling any noise from his sobs. He's good at it, he's had plenty of practice. It is not a terribly manly thing to be doing, but Sena's doing it regardless, even if Agon is asleep in the same bed right next to him. Actually, especially because _Agon's asleep next to him_.

He's going over their (not) relationship and looking for an escape route, because as Hiruma used to say, even if there's 0.000001% chance of success, there's still a chance.

God, that seems so long ago.

He begins listing the good points. Even if Agon seems terrible at times, there are other ways he makes up for it, right? He deserves to have both sides represented at the trial going on in Sena's head, even if he never hears the verdict. It just seems more fair that way. Agon's protective,

"_If you ever so much as look at him again, fucking trash, I'll break your other arm!"_

thoughtful at times,

"_For trash, you're not that bad. Never as good as me, though." _(How easily history is rewritten.)

has a good memory,

"_Fuck, was it your birthday yesterday? What were you expecting, flowers? Pussy."_

and… he's a heavy sleeper. A very heavy sleeper. It's as if all the light speed reaction ability he has while conscious is compensation for his lack of reaction while asleep. Sena holds the pillow a few inches above a snoring Agon's face a little tighter. It's a little game Sena likes to play. It's called, Let's See if Sena Will Smother Agon in his Sleep Tonight. So far, Sena's losing. Badly.

Sena was always such a careful boy, and maybe there'll be a better opportunity in a minute, a week, two seconds ago, or half a century from now.

He doesn't think he can last half a century. Not sanely, at any rate.

Sena is a boy who played cautiously (not that it helps, and they say stupidity is the repetition of an action and expecting it to have different results), but now he has run out of pavement and places to run to.

He steps off the sidewalk.

* * *

"No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

* * *

A/N: This was just something my brain decided to smash against the keyboard in answer to a challenge I didn't actually make. Agon and Sena, dark, and Sena doesn't get any dialogue. For a reason, as it turns out.

Might write a companion from Agon's point of view. No promises. I don't know if I really captured Agon here, the woes of not writing in a fandom very often.

Read and review or I'll tell Agon you hit on Sena! :D


End file.
